found: Wikipedia, Feb. 5, 2014(Elizabeth "Bessie" Coleman (January 26, 1892 - April 30, 1926) was an American civil aviator; the first female pilot of African American descent and the first person of African-American descent to hold an international pilot license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale) {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessie_Coleman}

found: African American National Biography, accessed December 12 2014, via Oxford African American Studies Center database:(Coleman, Bessie; Elizabeth Coleman; aviator; born 26 January 1892 in Atlanta, Texas, United States; studied manicuring at Burnham's School of Beauty Culture and worked at the White Sox Barber Shop in Chicago (1912-1917); after being rejected by a number of American aviation schools because of her race and sex, in 1920 she went to France and studied at the Aviation School, run by the Caudron Aircraft Manufacturing Company; later trained in Paris under a French pilot who reportedly shot down thirty-one German planes in World War I. her plane of choice was the 130-horsepower Nieuport de Chasse; on 15 June 1921 Coleman received her pilot's license, number 18310, the first awarded to an American woman by the French Federation Aeronautique Internationale and became the only licensed African American woman pilot in the world; died 30 April 1926 in Orlando, Florida, United States, Paxon Field)